Google+ now displays unread notifications in the browser tab bar

Although Google has done a pretty good job of implementing Google+ into its portfolio of services, the search giant hadn’t implemented a solution that would enable users to see view their notifications without having to install a third-party extension like Surplus to display the number of replies, friend additions and tags on their account.

It appears Google has added yet another small feature to Google+ to assist users with this problem, implementing a small tab notification count that displays the number of notifications a user has, as long as they have a Google+ tab or window open in their browser.

Similar to Facebook, the count will update every time a user receives a new message or friend request, meaning users can open a Google+ tab and simply draw their eyes to it periodically to see if they have been any activity on their account.

A minor change but a big one if you are a Google+ user that always has a tab open to see what it happening on their account. It also means you don’t have to install resource hungry extensions or trust application developers to update their add-ons when Google changes something on its social networking service.

Matt is based near London and is the News Editor for The Next Web. You can follow him on Twitter, subscribe to his updates on Facebook and catch up with him on Google+. You can reach Matt via email at matt@thenextweb.com.